Yes that’s right SIX HUNDRED POUNDS! £600 is more than I live off in month, even before this experiment! If £600 is the average, this means some people spend more! Unless I became a cocaine addict with a passion for hiring sports cars I don’t think I could every spend that much in a single weekend. So if £600 is the average could it be possible to do an entire festival for nothing?
I has a head start on most as early this year I emailed loads of festivals to try and do some workshops. A few got back to me but then working at the Eden project meant I had to cancel some of them. One I could do as it was in July rather than August was Camp Bestival down in Lulworth Cove. It’s a fantastic part of the country and somewhere I would go on holiday even without a festival taking place, so getting a free pair of tickets to do a wild food walk was a real bonus.

After putting messages all over the internet on car-share schemes and even this very site weeks in advance it got closer to the date and no-one was coming forward to drive us. In despair I emailed the woman who booked me in the first place to see if she had any ideas. She put me in touch with someone who was driving down on the Friday (who quite by chance lived around two minutes walk from my house).

Our companions for the trip down to Dorset were due to join their wives and children who had set up on the festival site a few days before to run a stall. They were really friendly and the journey down flew by just chatting about what we all respectively did for a living and generally getting to know each other. They were TV music producers and by the sounds of things quite busy and skilled at their trade. We didn’t mention our no-money experiment and as we’d already agreed to pay for travel if essential – Our plan was to offer petrol money, or if they asked we would give them it. On arrival we had the usual great British politeness stand off – ‘are you sure you don’t want any petrol money?’ ‘go on please take it’ etc, etc. In the end we agreed to give them £10 for parking.

As we set foot into the festival we’d spent £5 each rather than the £410 the average person had already spent at this point. Some might see this as a defeat but our no-money rules meant we only spent money transport (when unable to travel by bike), bills, rent and tax – Dorset is a 2-3 day cycle and Ellie couldn’t get that time off work. To me this experiment is more to do with self-reliance than blagging off someone else; so paying someone kind enough to drive us on a 6 hour round trip just ten pounds didn’t seem like a defeat to us!

The first night was easy, we had a gas hob, food to cook on it (pasta from the coffee barter) and some booze we had in the back of the cupboard. It’s amazing really just what you can find lying around your home that is perfectly edible or drinkable. I think alcohol is one of those things that most will have a bottle or two of something lying around. Booze is often left for years and years before a brave (or alcoholic) friend turns up and drinks it all. A friend of mine told me a story of his near alcoholic mate turning up at his parents house and drinking a bottle of whiskey with a label reading ‘by appointment to his majesty the King’. So later that night we watched Mercury Rev and for the first time in what seemed like months, both of us were feeling a little tipsy.

Our easy ride of Friday began to wain a little as whilst boiling water for tea the gas burner ran out of gas! I was feeling a little fuzzy from the night before at this point and just wanted a caffeine hit to get me started. The water was half way to boiling when it died so we did at least have luke warm tea and instead of porridge we ate the last of the croissants we’d gleaned the week before from a Tesco bin.

I did have my storm kettle as a back up for the gas burner but unsure of the fire regulations and as security seemed to be quite tight (we got told off quite a lot on Friday night for various very minor misdemeanor’s – like being in the wrong field at the wrong time!) we decided it best to leave the festival site to cook our lunch and dinner.

Camp Bestival is a festival by the sea, so for those inclined, a good day’s foraging could be had. On the Friday we had already foraged nettle tops, jelly ear fungus and a few other bits and bobs from the festival perimeter but on the Saturday we decided to take a walk down to the cove and see what diverse goodies Lulworth had to offer.
We were not disappointed, on the two mile walk to the beach we found the last of the wild cherries, cherry plums, horse mushrooms, sorrel and some fat hen! The cove itself was full of coastal favourites like sea beet and rock samphire.

We made a delicious one pot pasta meal on the base of the storm kettle and sat eating our bartered and foraged feast looking out to sea as the sun was setting (whilst removing stinging ants from various parts of our body).

We arrived back at the festival for P J Harvey and some obscure Mexican aniseed, honey booze I pulled from the back of the cupboard at home. Perhaps it was the lack of anything else to drink rather than being as bad as I remembered (hence being left in the cupboard for months) it was actually really nice. It was also incredibly strong – a little like a Mexican ouzo.

By the Sunday we thought ‘sod it’ to security and decided to cook on the storm kettle inside the perimeter. We were in Crew camping which meant security were in the same field as us and every security guard at the festival had to walk past our tent. Whilst boiling up our morning cuppa using scraps of wood and discarded cardboard I started to rouse a little attention. Rather than tell me off security were fascinated by the workings of the storm kettle. One even jotted down the name of the company that made them and swore he would buy one for the next festival he was working at.
It also attracted the attention of a festival geek, he spotted it from across the field and ran over in an affected ‘kooky’ manner.
‘wow, what’s that, is it a milk churn, is it a …..’
I cut him off mid flow, ‘It’s a storm kettle, it boils water quickly with very little fuel’
‘oh, well, yeah, I just thought it looked weird, I know you’ve told me what it is but it looks weird, I mean is it a puzzle, a jug within a jug’
‘Are you a dickhead within a wanker’ I felt like replying but bit my tongue and grinned.

I’m not surprised it got so much attention as they are a very useful bits of kit, the kettle itself sits on what is essentially a portable container for a fire. It also needs very little fuel to burn and will boil 1.5 litres of water in very little time.

Sunday lunch was a high point, we cooked up a noodle soup using the rock samphire, a small piece of block coconut cream, curry powder, some jelly ear, sorrel, beet spinach, nettles and a little bit of a half bottle of wine we found discarded as someone had left the festival. It was absolutely delicious and set me up for the wild food walk I was set to do that afternoon.

By evening we were feeling a little smug as heavy rain was forecast the next day and we’d done it, we’d gone through a whole festival without spending a penny! We had timed it well also as we had just a Tupperware box of turnip curry left to have that evening. As we packed up the tent we gave the curry a little sniff to see what we had in store for later and both of us nearly retched. Nearly three days in the Dorset sun had not done good things to this humble turnip meal and against all of our principals we were forced to throw away this fermenting box of veggies.

We arrived at the camp-site of the bloke who drove us and instantly sensed something was afoot. We weren’t mistaken and for reasons I won’t go into here our lift was now to leave in the morning rather than in five minutes! SHIT, SHIT, SHITTY, SHIT! I thought to myself, we have nothing to eat! The rain started to pour and we sat down to gather our thoughts assuring our hosts that leaving tomorrow was no problem at all.
We were hungover, sleep deprived, tired, hungry and now a little demoralised and both decided this was time to call an end to the experiment, we had to eat!
Wandering over to the field with all the catering vans we soon realised we had no idea what food was on offer. I had seen Hugh Fernly Whitingstall the night before and recalled that he had a River Cottage stand at the festival. I couldn’t help but feel a little awkward as he passed me in a crowd, he stared at me right in the eye as if he recognised me from somewhere. I felt like talking to him but I couldn’t help but think about my Chef within a Chef blog where I suggest that you stuff Anthony Worrel Thompson straight up Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s arse! How can I say, ‘yeah, I’m quite a fan of your work, did you read that blog about shoving a short fat man up your anal passage?’. That aside River Cottage would at least be local, seasonal, organic and free range so if we were going to spend money it would at least support local farmers and not line the pockets of large oil companies or multi-nationals.
I’m not sure what I expected, It was all bloody meat, not a single veggie meal to be had or at least none that seemed worthy of breaking our not spending regime. We moved on and queued for our joint favourite – flat Italian pizza. We’d seen people eating it all weekend and now we wanted to sample it for ourselves. It seemed half the festival had the same idea and the queue didn’t budge for around half and hour. This gave us enough time to come to our senses, we could forage and cook a meal in the time it would take to get served. We headed back to get the storm kettle and on the way found a loaf of bread and some margarine left by someone vacating the festival. The festival fatigue was really getting us by this point and we thought well we’ll eat some bread then go look for some more food.
Whilst eating the bread and butter an odd thing happened, although very plain it became one of the nicest things I’d ever eaten! After a number of slices with a little foraged sorrel and rock samphire I had in my pocket from the night before we both felt strangely satisfied.
To avoid the rain that was now chucking it down we had an early night followed by a breakfast of bread and butter. The long sleepy ride home was punctuated by finding red currents in a lay-by and the rest of Monday was spent recovering gently by eating, sleeping and generally making the most of not being under canvas.

Urban living is so embedded in me that even my surname ‘Hamilton’ means either ‘treeless hill town’ or ‘mountain town’. Where I was born and raised (Northampton) gets its name from two Saxon words ‘ham’ and ‘ton’ meaning small town or village and town respectively. I spent my formative years in this market town deemed the most demographically average town in the country leading to the strange phenomenon that it is often targeted by companies for product trials (the first place to have chip and pin, extended pub hours and various crisp flavours which never made it to the rest of the country).

So in other words I am David Mountain Town from North Town Town Town the most average town in the UK.

It’s been a while since I lived in Northampton but my other choices of where to live have always been leaning heavily on the urban side of things- Nottingham, London, Oxford and now Bristol.

So when my girlfriend suggested we should move to the countryside I was more than a little anxious. She has applied to do teacher training in Exeter but rather than live in the town she wants to move to the countryside. She was brought up in the countryside and unlike myself, has never really taken to life in a city.

We’re heading down to Exeter this week and when she goes for her interview I shall be exploring the countryside. The idea of the move is causing me to have a slight shift in consciousness and as a result I am now seeing Bristol with new eyes. I have started noticing all the fly tipping, the rats, and the paranoia that accompanies walking past gangs of ‘yoofs’ late at night. I’ve also began to look at the past in a different way and realised that despite being an urbanite I have always found whenever I had any free time I would be off into the green belts or woods of wherever I live. Even the few spells I had in London I would find myself wandering around the large parks or discovering green stretches of land such as Highgate woods or old railway lines long since abandoned and now turned into green corridors.

Does this mean I shall become a fraud, that being involved in the ‘urban guide to near self-sufficiency’ and we should change the tag line to our site? Have I just become another in a long line of people who are giving up the rat race and leaving the big city? Well hardly – I would have had to be in the rat race in the first place! Perhaps I should just stop being such a wimp and start looking forward to a more peaceful life!?

Last Years Successful Tap

It’s easy to miss the short window of time open for Birch tapping. The sap rises in the spring and if you miss it, that’s it for another year! The first tell tail sign is the new growth high in the canopy of the tree itself. When I was informed in late February the trees had started to bud early I knew I had to get on the case and get tapping. This year I was delighted to find not one but a whole row of Birches not far from my house. I thought my luck was in and this ear I would get a lot more than usual and could experiment with the stuff!
My girlfriend had been keen to get some sap and brew some birch sap wine so along with my brother Andy we went out with drill and bottles in hand to harvest some of the delicate fresh tree juice to play around with.
I use a hand drill rather than an electric one, it seems a much purer exercise and a bit kinder to the tree. The trick is to cut only a little passed the bark rather than deep within the tree. If you find yourself cutting deep into the tree without the sap oozing out then you’re either too early, too late. If this is the case and you should plug up the hole and try again later or the following year.

The three of us took it in turns to tap the trees and using string and parcel tape we attached bottles to the trees so the sap would drip into to collect in them. There are methods where you suspend a can on a nail dug into the tree or even make a container out of the tree bark itself. I have a box full of plastic bottles I keep meaning to take to the recycling bank, so it seemed pointless to spend all afternoon fashioning a vessel from tree bark.

Whilst tapping the final tree we noticed someone had been there before as they’d left a cork bunged into the trunk of the tree. If they were tapping it for sap there really is no need for the hole to be this big. The cork looked like one that would fit a demijohn and the hole only needs to be the diameter of a drinking straw!!!! Having said that cork is one of the best ways to seal up the tree as it expands to fit the size of the hole and can be removed for next years tap.
Without cork to hand I use a twig and sometimes tap it in with a hammer to make sure it is a proper seal.

It is important to reseal the hole as the sap would simply leach from it and never reach the canopy to feed the tree for the year to come, thus the tree would literally ‘bleed’ to death.

We left it over night and came back the following afternoon. I looked down the line of trees and all our containers looked empty. Sap seemed to ooze down the tree but not into our containers. I looked more closely and it looked like they’d all been tampered with. Spotting a large hole nearby it seems a fox; badger or even rabbit could have seen the containers and out of curiosity knocked them all.

Well this is what I thought until I closely examined container 5. Instead of the characteristic clear watery colour birch sap the milk bottle was full of a yellowy brown liquid*See Note.  Now this is where the small mammal theory breaks down! For a fox to disturb all five containers, and then jump on it’s hind legs and piss into a recently emptied one would be a feat even for an anthropomorphic animal with the dexterity of a Wind in the Willows or Pooh bear character! Even Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr Fox wouldn’t be skilled enough to aim into a milk carton half way up a tree.

One assumption from this situation is that foragers might at times be very territorial, pissing in my bottles could be a sign for me not to go near their patch. Either that or some kids thought it might be funny to knock a load of bottles around then piss into one. Either way, I’m finding slightly less urban birches to tap!

Note - As a forager or indeed in any aspect of life you are constantly revising what you’ve learned.  I have since found out if the sap comes yellow or yellow/brown then there is a bacteria present in the sap and you should not drink it.  Also the downy birch looks very similar to the silver birch but the sap has a bitter taste and therefore it is not advisable to tap a downy birch.

Last week I’d planned to put in a pond, build a shed, put in a path and erect some kind of greenhouse but my plans were dashed when down came the snow! I perhaps wouldn’t have managed all the tasks in hand, I tend to overload myself and then feel bad when I can’t do everything I planned! So at least chipping away at some of the tasks would have been good but the weather had just made it impossible; filling a pond only for it to freeze is perhaps counter productive at best.

So instead last Monday I decided to take myself off to Abergavenny to enjoy the snow in a nice hilly, country setting. It’s only an hour by train there from Bristol and it really feels like you’re out in the wilds. I’m working on a novel at the moment and some of this features snowy surroundings so if I couldn’t do practical work then a little research would perhaps be the next best thing.

I arrived in the picturesque town of Abergavenny to a near blizzard. Sensing walking could be dangerous in this weather I took myself to a nice little café to sit it out with a newspaper, a nice hot cup of tea and jacket potato.

After half and hour or so the snow seemed to calm a little and I took myself on a route out of town, over the canal, and up a hill through a line of trees. I was so taken by the beauty of the landscape enveloped in snow I found myself taking countless pictures.

Half way up the hill I stumbled across a farmer whose land I must have been walking on. I asked him, “if I carry on walking up this way, how long before I…”

He interrupted, “how long before you die?!”

I laughed a little but saw that he was really only half joking, I’m sure dealing with a frozen corpse on your land is not a job most farmers would wish for. He advised I walk up a little to a spot where he turns the sheep out and if the fog has really set in and I can’t see much it would be for the best that I turn round and come back down.

Now I remember once whilst walking in Scotland myself and two friends aimed to climb a mountain and come back down within a day. On the ascent we met a well-seasoned walker who told us the footpath was only on our side of the mountain and our route would take us through ‘just, deer tracks and heather’. Rather than follow his advice we completely ignored it and just walked up the route we’d planed. After spending 24 longer than intended, sleeping in a tent pitched in a bog, drinking boiled snow (we’d run out of water), starving as we only packed enough food for 1 day and 1 night and twisting my ankle on the deer tracks and heather I have since then taken the advice of people who know an area better than I do!

I walked up to the area he turned the sheep out and the fog had really set in, visibility was low and I could barely walk two paces without slipping. Still something in me wanted to get to the top of the hill, it’s almost as if I have some suicidal gene that wants me to get into trouble! However, I ignored my self-destructive internal dialogue and stared heading back down the hill. I’d made quite a lot of notes for the novel and taken a lot of pictures so I’d done what I set out to do and I wandered back down.

Not wanting to cut the walk to short I wandered up and down the canal for a bit and stumbled across some velvet shank (Flammulina velutipes) growing out of a dead standing tree. It really stood out in the frost and I couldn’t resist taking a bit home to eat and taking a few pics.

Velvet shank is quite easy to identify but it can look like Galerina marginata, a particularly nasty mushroom. The toxins in Galerina margina (or Galerina autumnalis) are known as amatoxins give you bloody diarrhea and make you vomit about a day after ingestion. Then after a little bit of time you start to feel better so most hospitals will discharge you. During this brief respite your organs collapse causing a certain and very painful death. Needless to say I made darn sure I had he right mushroom before I ate them. A spore print is essential; look at the mushroom expert for more details.

Velvet shank is a bit bland so I stir fried it up with, amongst other things, some chilli, black beans, ginger and had it with tofu, broccoli, home grown Jew’s ear fungus (or jelly ear) with some soba noodles. It was pretty tasty once I flavoured it but I wonder if it’s always worth risking death for such a bland mushroom!?

The week was a bit more sedate after Monday, I felt risking death twice in 24 hours was quite enough for one week. It may be perhaps as I’ve given up smoking that I still need to be dicing with death on a daily basis. Perhaps it wasn’t the nicotine I was addicted to but the fact I was ingesting a poison.